Russian invasion of Ukraine

[ICTChris]

On the subject of Bucha, this weeks War On The Rocks podcast with Michael Kofman discusses what leads to that sort of incident.  It's a combination of the level of violence inherent in the Russian armed forces and the command structure supposed to control it.  The Russian Army has had significant historic issues with hazing and violence against conscripts - this goes a lot further than the sort of bullying that you probably get in every army.  The Russian Army saw numerous deaths due to this behaviour - there was a notorious instance where a conscript was beaten and made to squat in water for hours, resulting in his legs and genitals becoming gangrenous and being amputated.  There is a Russian term for this violence 'dedovshchina' and it's something that the command have ostensibly tried to combat.  They reduced conscripts terms of service from two to one year - a major souce of the violence was second year conscripts bullying first years.  However, it's clear that this bheaviour hasn't been eliminated and contributes to the level of brutalisation and violence deemed acceptable by Russian soldiers.  If being raped and beaten and bullied is the norm in your working life as a soldier it isn't a huge leap that you are going to behave like this.

Also, the Russian Army has an issue with it's mid-level officers - they simply don't put as much value in them, they aren't given operational freedom to make decisions, they aren't extensively trained and they are expected to just implement top down orders.  Russian NCOs therefore aren't of a high quality and often can't control and instil discipline in their units, leading to marauding and acts of rape and violence against civilians in occupied zones.  This happened in Chechnya as well.  This has probably had an impact on the battlefield as well, with Ukrainian units being led in a much more nimble and flexible way.  Certainly in the early days of the war lots of RUssian vehicles seemed to drive to nowhere, get ambushed and die or drive into mud and abandon their vehicles.  It screams of someone saying "get yhour unit to this point" and just expecting all the mid-level guys to make it happen rather than adapt.

Thirdly, and most disturbingly, the fact is that by selling the invasion as de-Nazification and pushing the narrative of treachery, of imminent threat to Russia, the Russian state has tacitly condoned this behaviour.  The Ukrainian security services have released audio of an intercepted phone call from a Russian soldier in Bucha phoning his mother, in which he tells her he has killed cilivians and she says that it's OK because they were all traitors and Nazis.  

[Hedgecutter]

4 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Maybe someone ITK can explain why Putin started this.  He seems to be in total control in Russia so it’s not like he had to in order to win domestic support.

I remember when playing Age of Empires that I'd get a bit bored if everything was going along peacefully.  I'd therefore summon a 'big daddy' and lay into the Hittites or some other mob just for a bit of interest, and then take the last bit of land off the Shang just to complete the island. 

Usually I'd only kill the military and keep the civilians to be converted into farmers by my priests, but then kill the f***ing lot of them with photon men if I made a stupid move that lost me my prized assets.

I suspect that Putin has a bit of the Hedgecutter mentality in him.

[ICTChris]

12 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Maybe someone ITK can explain why Putin started this.  He seems to be in total control in Russia so it’s not like he had to in order to win domestic support.

No-one really knows except Putin but I think what underlies it is the necesity for Russia to have a favourable regime in Ukraine.  Ukraine and Russia have been linked militarily, socially and economically.  Russia needs to sell oil and gas to Europe to survive, they need Ukraine to do that.  Russia sees NATO and Western Europe as a military threat, Ukraine is the state between Russia and NATO so they need them onside.  Economically, until 2014, Russia and Ukraine were highly interwoven in terms of supply chains, industry and espeically military supply.  Mad as it seems now, Ukraine used to supply huge ammounts of military equipement to Russia.  Ukraine has (had) a large military industry and exported almost 100% of it, mostly to Russia.  So for Russia, they look at Ukraine and think that they need a friendly leader or government in power there.

Since Putin came to power Russia have tried to maintain influence over Ukraine.  In the early 2000s they had a good relationship with the then Ukrainian leadership but this was damaged in 2004 with the Orange Revolution, where the pro-Russian candidate was defeated in a re-run presidential election which featured an attempted poisoning of his opponent Yushenko.  Relations were a little strained but not broken following this and the pro-Russian Yanukovych won the 2010 election.  He was overthrown in the 2014 revolution after overruling Parliament by refusing to sign an integration agreemnt with the EU in favour of one with teh Eurasian Economic Union, a pro-Russian group of former Soviet states.  That lead to his overthrow, the collapse of the Ukrainian state and the initial Russian military intervenions into Ukraine in Crimea and the Donbas.  

Since then Ukraine has been fighting against Russian forces in the Donbas and Russia has attempted to use the conflict to pull Ukraine back.  However, that has proved impossible, Russian influence in Ukraine has been minimised by their actions since 2014.  Pro-Russian parties have reduced influence post-2014 and the likelidhood of Ukraine voting the sort of leadership that Russia would welcome (ie Yanukovych mark 2) is non-existent.  Russia have clearly assessed the situation and decided the best way for them to achieve their goals was a military intervention.  

That's my very basic assessment of it as well.  I think there are probably domestic and other thoughts behind it too but don't want to spam everyone out.

[LongTimeLurker]

17 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Maybe someone ITK can explain why Putin started this.  He seems to be in total control in Russia so it’s not like he had to in order to win domestic support.

Not sure if I qualify as truly ITK given I didn't think the invasion was going to happen and probably would have ignored the advise to get out of Ukraine ASAP if I had been there but have been in Russia a few times and know plenty of Russians and Ukrainians well so will give this a go.

Although it has its own language as well, Ukraine is still very much part of the Russian speaking cultural sphere. Having a large functional pro-NATO and pro-EU democracy in the Russian speaking Slavic portion of the post-Soviet cultural space that is ruled from Kyiv was a threat to Putin's power vertical model of governance because it shows people in Russia that there is a viable alternative that could also happen in the post-Soviet state that is ruled from Moscow.

In Putin's world view Ukraine (or a very large portion of it, maybe not Galicia around Lviv) is part of what really should constitute Russia so he doesn't have total control over what he views as Russia if he isn't pulling the strings of his power vertical there as well.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

Maybe someone ITK can explain why Putin started this.  He seems to be in total control in Russia so it’s not like he had to in order to win domestic support.

I'm not in the know, but I suspect he's had bad news on the medical front and was thinking about his legacy. He sees himself as an amateur historian and has been reading up on the heroes of the past like Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, and wants to be remembered with some colour changes on the map. He's also furious that he's not treated like the leader of a great super power, instead as a supplier of raw materials and fuel to modern economies and who happens to have some nukes. I think he genuinely thought that, with his strategic genius, taking Ukraine would be as easy as Crimea and South Ossetia.

Edited April 15, 2022 by welshbairn

[Hedgecutter]

22 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I'm not in the know, but I suspect he's had bad news on the medical front and was thinking about his legacy. He sees himself as an amateur historian and has been reading up on the heroes of the past like Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible

Initially read that as Peter Grant.

Evidently spent too much time on that Dunfermline thread.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Hedgecutter

[jagfox]

[VincentGuerin]

35 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

On the subject of Bucha, this weeks War On The Rocks podcast with Michael Kofman discusses what leads to that sort of incident.  It's a combination of the level of violence inherent in the Russian armed forces and the command structure supposed to control it. 

All quite similar to the Japanese army in the 30s and 40s throughout Asia. A violent internal culture condoned and in many ways encouraged by The Big Bosses, weak decision-making structures in the immediate sphere, and a bit of racial superiority thrown in and you've got a list as long as your arm of the attrocities the Japanese committed.

This seems a similar thing with the Russian military maybe replacing racial superiority with the concept of traitors and Nazis.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

This seems to be making Americas adventures in Vietnam seem competent

13 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I'm not in the know, but I suspect he's had bad news on the medical front and was thinking about his legacy. He sees himself as an amateur historian and has been reading up on the heroes of the past like Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, and wants to be remembered with some colour changes on the map. He's also furious that he's not treated like the leader of a great super power, instead as a supplier of raw materials and fuel to modern economies and who happens to have some nukes. I think he genuinely thought that taking Ukraine would be as easy as Crimea.

By the time you've been in power that long your only competion are ghosts I suppose

I asked my Russian mate Misha why Putin was doing this. His answer was quite long but could be summarised as "Because he's a fucking c**t"

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

Peter the Grant

[Caledonian1]

1 hour ago, Hedgecutter said:

I remember when playing Age of Empires that I'd get a bit bored if everything was going along peacefully.  I'd therefore summon a 'big daddy' and lay into the Hittites or some other mob just for a bit of interest, and then take the last bit of land off the Shang just to complete the island. 

Usually I'd only kill the military and keep the civilians to be converted into farmers by my priests, but then kill the f***ing lot of them with photon men if I made a stupid move that lost me my prized assets.

I suspect that Putin has a bit of the Hedgecutter mentality in him.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Hedgecutter said:

 

I suspect that Putin has a bit of the Hedgecutter mentality in him.

Probably the most disturbing post I’ve read on this thread.

[red23]

12 hours ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

Did they claim asylum? 

all been sent to Rwanda

[HK Hibee]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

Maybe someone ITK can explain why Putin started this.  He seems to be in total control in Russia so it’s not like he had to in order to win domestic support.

I think the Russians fear being invaded.  Hard to understand as British folk as we haven’t really been invaded since 1066. (Arguably).

there is a book by a guy called Tim Marshall who explains this better than me. The short answer is that the French and Germans tried and nearly succeeded in conquering Russia in last 200 years and so having a buffer between those European powers and the border is important to them. Moscow is not that far away from the Ukrainian border in a tank.

 

note. I am not an apologist for why Putin did this but I do think the reasons  need examined

[Moomintroll]

21 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Probably the most disturbing post I’ve read on this thread.

Does that mean Putin knows where I live? FML.

[Boo Khaki]

Soviets/Russians have always viewed security in terms of space and distance, hence their propensity to surround themselves with puppet and buffer states. The thinking is that the further away from you your ideological enemies are, and the more shit they have to wade through to get to you, the safer you are from invasion and conquest. Ukraine being viewed as cozying up to the West obviously creates an issue for Russians with this mindset, and awareness of it has played a significant part in Sweden and Finland not joining NATO before now. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Boo Khaki

[Moomintroll]

7 minutes ago, HK Hibee said:

I think the Russians fear being invaded.  Hard to understand as British folk as we haven’t really been invaded since 1066. (Arguably).

there is a book by a guy called Tim Marshall who explains this better than me. The short answer is that the French and Germans tried and nearly succeeded in conquering Russia in last 200 years and so having a buffer between those European powers and the border is important to them. Moscow is not that far away from the Ukrainian border in a tank.

 

note. I am not an apologist for why Putin did this but I do think the reasons  need examined

The Power of Geography? Excellent book if so & also explains a lot about Islamic Fundamentalism in The Sahel.

[KingRocketman II]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

I'm not in the know, but I suspect he's had bad news on the medical front and was thinking about his legacy. He sees himself as an amateur historian and has been reading up on the heroes of the past like Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, 

1 hour ago, Hedgecutter said:

Initially read that as Peter Grant.

Peter the Grant and Ivan the Sproule. 

[Johnstoun]

12 minutes ago, KingRocketman II said:

Peter the Grant and Ivan the Sproule. 

Nicholas the Charlie?

[Lofarl]

Real life lore did a good video on the reasons last month.  Might need to scroll it back from the start.